OTTAWA \u2013 {A high-profile Liberal senator apologized to his colleagues Tuesday afternoon, saying he fell asleep at the wheel seconds before crashing his car on Parliament Hill.}<\/p>\n
Sen. Romeo Dallaire said he was simply exhausted from weeks of meetings, and high emotions over the approaching 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, as well as the suicides of three Canadian soldiers in the course of one week.<\/p>\n
Around 10 a.m. Tuesday, his BMW crashed into a light pole outside the East Block. The impact created enough force to deploy airbags, the Ottawa Citizen\u2019s Glen McGregor reported.<\/p>\n
Dallaire told his colleagues he was physically fine from the crash. He said he thought he had enough energy to make it to work Tuesday, but realized he was more tired than he believed. \u201cI simply ran out of steam,\u201d Dallaire said.<\/p>\n
Sgt. Karen Zytynsky said an RCMP investigation into the accident is pending and that no decision has been made about whether the senator will be charged.<\/p>\n
In an interview with CBC after the accident, Dallaire said he is mad at himself for putting the lives of others at risks and is \u201cpissed off\u201d that he\u2019s become \u201ctired and weak.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he will be taking a taxi to work until he feels safe to drive, but did not like the suggestion that he take it easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hurts less when I\u2019m busy, so that\u2019s the quandary,\u201d Dallaire said.<\/p>\n
Dallaire was the general commanding United Nations peacekeeping troops during the Rwandan genocide. His memoir, \u201cShake Hands with the Devil,\u201d details the atrocities he witnessed and his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
Dallaire is regularly asked to comment on world events, and has been in high demand for interviews and comments recently over the anniversary. He told the Senate that because of the anniversary he was reliving the events from Rwanda on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
Dallaire told the Senate he hoped his falling asleep at the wheel didn\u2019t bring any more dishonour to the chamber.<\/p>\n
He received an ovation from both sides of the aisle as he finished, with senators walking over to his desk to talk with him, shake his hand, and pat him on the shoulder.<\/p>\n
canada.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OTTAWA \u2013 {A high-profile Liberal senator apologized to his colleagues Tuesday afternoon, saying he fell asleep at the wheel seconds before crashing his car on Parliament Hill.} Sen. Romeo Dallaire said he was simply exhausted from weeks of meetings, and high emotions over the approaching 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, as well as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000049499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-11661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000049499,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11661.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000049499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11661"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=11661"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=11661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}